My Liveships

My poor hero and heroine in Starwoman's Sanctuary have to make the most of their scant moments alone. They are just so darn BUSY, evacuating and saving people...I like how this story has come together and how it is blending into the next, Big Poison Station.

Both these book's plots involve a live ship. It is actually the same type of live ship that  appears in my steampunk, Starlander's Myth. The world of Starlander's Myth takes place a few hundred years after Earth gets the ability to travel through space, while my Diaspora books take place several centuries after the events of Starlander's Myth. 

So somewhere in the big wide open spaces, Sophie and Jack's griffen shifter descendents are alive and well. That could be a story someday.

My live ship people and the ships themselves have the same name, Recondins (this name, referring to a third type of human, is mentioned in Alien Blood).The ships are not made by humans, they grow as a plant in soil. And a plant they remain unless humans develop a mutualistic symbiotic relationship by living within the huge gourds. Humans receive food, water, shelter and healing proprieties from the ships. The ship gains nutrients from humans that are unlike what it receives from the soil. Over time, it becomes sentient and knowledgeable about its human companions. As it matures it reaches a stage where it can leap into space. Once in space Recondins find gas clouds, which provide them with energy to become truly huge, with an inner living space the size of four Earths. They live for eons of time, and occasionally seed planets. 

Humans within might live as simple farmers, hunters and gatherers, or may be knowledgeable of the nature of their world and have influence in the  travels of the Recondin.

While it wasn't written into the story, the zephyr or Recondin in Starlander's Myth acted on its own volition, it's human inhabitants unaware of Jack and Sophie or their ship.

In Starwoman's Sanctuary, the people--at least some of the people-- of this Recondin are knowledgeable about their world and space and have space travel ships for exploring beyond the Recondin.